Monday, January 25, 2010

High Horse's Courting

I just read this hilarious story from my English book called, "High Horse's Courting". It made me laugh out loud!!!! I have paraphrased it for your reading enjoyment, but the story in its entirety is even funnier! It's an authentic Native American tale about an Indian boy named High horse who wants to marry this beautiful Indian girl. He talks to the girl and she says that she likes him maybe a little. The Indians would trade horses for their wives, but High Horse only had two horses and her father won't let him have his daughter for only two horses and said for him to quit talking foolishness like that. High Horse's friend offers to let him borrow two more horses, but the father won't let him have his daughter for four horses either. High Horse asks the girl to run away with him, but she says she wants to be bought like a proper wife. So High Horse felt really sick and he felt like he was going to die. His friend Red Deer notices and says he has a plan: they will steal the girl and High Horse and the girl will ride away together and be happy for the rest of their lives. Red Deer waits outside while High Horse sneaks into her teepee after he is sure her and her parents are asleep, but finds that her parents have tied her in bed with leather thongs in case someone tried to steal her, and they thought she might even want to be stolen. So he has to cut the leather cords away with his knife while she is sleeping, and each one makes a loud POP. But she still doesn't wake up. When he is down to the cords at her thighs, he is really nervous and his knife slips and pokes her, which in turn makes her wake up yelling, which wakes up her parents and they start yelling, and her father gets some other men and they go and chase High Horse and Red Deer, who run away like antelopes, but no one is sure who they were because it was so dark. So High Horse is feeling sicker than ever and Red Deer plans another way for them to steal her. He tells High Horse to strip and then he paints him white with black stripes until High Horse looks so terrible that Red Deer says he is almost scared. Red Deer tells him that this time, if he is caught again trying to steal the girl, the village will think he is a bad Spirit and would be afraid to chase him. So High Horse sneaks into the teepee again and Red Deer waits outside while he cuts the cords. It made a lot of noise and the girl started moving around in her sleep and then her mother wakes up. "Suddenly the old woman awoke and said to her old man: 'Old Man, wake up! There is somebody in the teepee!' But the old man was sleepy and didn't want to be bothered. He said: 'Of course there is somebody in the teepee. Go to sleep and don't bother me.' Then he snored some more." (LOL) But this really scared High Horse so he lay still so they wouldn't see him and then he got so tired he fell asleep. Next thing he knew, it was morning and the girl was screaming and her parents were yelling about a strange animal in the teepee and he almost knocked the teepee down getting out! Apparently his friend was wrong about the village being scared to chase him because the whole village chased after him with guns and bows and tomahawks but he ran and hid in a hollow tree and nobody found him. By then the village was creeped out and decided to move out quickly. So they moved and left High Horse behind in the hollow tree. The whole time, his friend Red Deer knew what was happening of course but had to pretend to be as surprised and scared as everybody else. He watched where High Horse ran off to and after the camp moved he went and found High Horse. High Horse wasfeeling so ashamed and sick he said he would go on the war-path all alone and he didn't care what happened to him. But Red Deer said he wouldn't let him do that, and went on the war-path with him. They went and stole a herd of about a hundred horses from a Crow tribe and drove them in front of the girl's teepee. High Horse yelled to the father asking if he thought maybe that was enough horses for his girl (I can just feel the sarcasm...) The old man told him he didn't want the horses, he wanted "a son who was a real man and good for something. So High Horse got his girl after all, and I think he deserved her."

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